DETROIT — Justin Abdelkader will play Saturday night against the Nashville Predators.

We still don’t know which forward Mike Babcock will bench.

All signs point to someone on that third line, which has been made up of Jiri Hudler, Mike Modano and Dan Cleary.

I don’t see Cleary getting benched because he kills penalties and also fills in for Tomas Holmstrom on the top line.

Modano would also be a hard one to sit for a number of reasons. Even though he has had a rough start to his time in Detroit, it’s a home game and I don’t see it happening.

Hudler seems to be the more likely player to watch Saturday night. Hudler hasn’t scored this season and in his previous years in Detroit always seemed to be the one trying to fight his way out of the doghouse.

“They’ve got to be way harder in the (offensive) zone,” Babcock added. “They spend way too much time chasing puck around.”

The threesome have a combined two goals and three assists, but the category that’s the biggest problem for the trio is plus/minus where they collectively a minus-16. Hudler and Modano are both a minus-6.

“We’re struggling because a lot of the pucks are ending up in our net,” Hudler said. “We’ve been doing good things, but obviously nobody’s going to see it when you look at the (game) sheet after the game and you see a minus. We just have to keep working hard.”

“I’m not frustrated,” Hudler added. “You can’t take (those seven games) back. We’ve definitely had our scoring chances. You have to practice hard everyday. It’s going to turnaround. We must produce as one.”

Breaking up the line would more than likely come at the expense of the Wings’ second line of Johan Franzen, Todd Bertuzzi and Valtteri Filppula.

That line, many nights, has been their best unit on the ice.

“That’s the problem … or the good thing,” Babcock said. “Maybe I could change it and fix both and maybe I could change it and not fix both.

“I haven’t been forced because we’ve been winning, but we’ve got to get them going,” Babcock continued. “Now the other thing is, I can say to you we got to get them going, but don’t they got to get themselves going? Between the three of them they all have a skill set. Let’s us that skill set and not try and do anyone else’s job.”

Modano has not scored since opening night.

“We all had high expectations going into the season and talked about how big of an impact the line could have,” Modano said. “We feel we’re on the verge. We’ve had opportunities, but we’ve just had a stretch of bad luck defensively.”

DETROIT — Kris Draper was back in the Wings’ locker room after having sports hernia surgery last week.

“Dr. Meyers has a whole protocol to follow,” Draper said. “Just walking and then slowly start to do more exercise. Right now, the first week after surgery, (I’m) just walking and keep moving.

“You never want to be injured but if it happened I’m glad it happened early in the season,” Draper continued.
Draper is hoping two start light skating in two weeks.

“I started feeling good and then all the sudden something else was going wrong,” Draper said. “It was getting frustrating, but I went in. Dr. Meyers said he was happy with the way things went, he saw a significant tear.

“We made the right decision, instead of trying rest, wasn’t going to work,” Draper added. “He thinks everything is going to be fine once it heals up.”
Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson (bulging disc) skated for the first 20 minutes of practice.

“I just have to take it easy,” Ericsson said. “It feels good on the ice, they just want me to take it slowly.”